


Prime

by TheTofuEatingCat



Category: Red vs. Blue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:01:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26207593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTofuEatingCat/pseuds/TheTofuEatingCat
Summary: My RVB inspired RP OC, Agent Wisconsin, was incarcerated in solitary confinement, but as a brilliant scientist she likes to keep her mind sharp; this story chronicles how she stayed sane throughout that time.
Kudos: 2





	Prime

When in jail, it’s customary to count. To count the days until you’re let free. However, the numbers being muttered under Wisconsin’s breath were very obviously not numbers that one would be counting ordinarily for a prison sentence, and all the guards knew that by now. Hearing her crazed whispers as one stood guard was almost comforting, like a fan droning on during the night.

Her schedule of the day was set in stone. She’d wake up around 7 am, from where she’d do multiple in-cell exercises to keep her body in tip-top shape. Breakfast would be served at 8, and after she’d finish eating it’d be straight to proverbial the number’s board. Lunch would be served at noon, where she’d eat then continue her muttering until dinner was served at 6. From six, it would be another round of exercises and a good time spent meditating (a practice she had mastered on 45’) before washing up and going to sleep. Rinse and repeat for over a year. 

There had been a few attempts to get her to spill what she was doing, all of them being met by her more intensively concentrating and speaking louder to drown out the questions. This combined with her juggling numbers for nearly 10 hours a day made many of the guards come to the conclusion that she had officially snapped and all she was saying was nonsensical.

However, some of the other guards had reasons to believe that the agent hadn’t lost her marbles, and was actually quite sound in her mind. Two argued that they had heard her repeat several huge numbers over and over again under her breath after muttering an insane mathematical equation. But again, they couldn’t figure out what she was working out. 

That was, until 392 and 5/8 days after the Agent’s incarceration. Ivan was working afternoon shift guarding Agent Wisconsin’s cell. That was her code name, of course, her real name was Madison Weddell. From what he had gathered about her was she was nothing short of a genius. She had apparently done a lot in the med-tech world while aboard the Odin Initiative, but that involvement would ultimately be her downfall, as the organization was credited with multiple war crime-like atrocities and therefore led to her impoundment. However, other than her cooperation with the Initiative, he couldn’t pick out anything else that would designate her to be in solitary confinement.

Looks could be deceiving, Ivan supposed as he took her missing leg into account. He often wondered how she lost it but knew asking her would be fruitless, not to mention against the rules. He continued to keep guard when he heard something he had never heard in his time as a guard for the agent: silence. Ice seeped into Ivan’s veins as he looked over to the prisoner’s door and slowly approached while talking into his mic.  
  
“Hey, this is Ivan down at isolation unit 17, prisoner 1848 has stopped her usual mutterings. I am going to investigate, stand by.” Cautiously, Ivan approached the door and peered inside only to find her pale hands clasped around the bars and sharp brown eyes peering into his own unblinkingly as she began to speak _at him_.   
All the prisoner said was a number. A huge number, over 50 digits in length. She said the number with such assuredness, it left Ivan so flabbergasted and confused he would essentially throw all protocols out of the window.  
  
“What? What does that mean?” He stumbled out, trying to understand what this number could possibly represent. The number of atoms in the human body? The number of stars in the universe? The number of years the universe will continue on before the eventual heat death?  
  
“I found the largest hand-calculated prime number to date. It’s-.” She repeated the absurd number before releasing the bars of the door’s window before she started to mutter all over again, leaving Ivan transfixed and horrified. This is what she had been doing? Hand- no, not even hand. _Mentally_ calculating out impossibly huge prime numbers? He stepped back before speaking into his mic again.

  
“You guys are not gonna fuckin’ believe this shit.”  
  
  
  
Two hours later he was relieved from his post with the serving of the prisoner’s dinner, leaving him to head to the mess hall for his own supper. Upon arrival, he’d be greeted by a few of his guard buddies.

  
“Ivan, heard there was some wacky shit up with prisoner 1848?” The first shift morning guard for 1848, Shawn questioned.

  
“Yeah, y’know how she mutters all the time?”

  
“Mhm,” he responded while swallowing a mouthful of a questionable casserole, “numbers from the moment she finishes her breakfast. I swear I’ve never heard her go quiet for even a minute.”

  
“Yeah, well, she went quiet, then, when I went to see what was going on, she looked me dead in the eyes then spat out this insane number,” Ivan explained while the first-afternoon shift guard, D’hall, listened with a horrified expression, having fully stopped eating to listen intently.

  
“Did she say anything else?” He asked, voice thick with an Indian accent, to which Ivan nodded in response.

  
“Yeah, she then said it was the biggest prime number to ever be manually calculated, and that _she_ did it.” The entire table went silent as others had begun listening in and a guard from another Agent assignment, he thinks Agent Kentucky, speaks up.

  
“No way man, you can’t find that shit without a calculator. Let alone without _paper._ ” He argued while the rest of the table went up into a chorus of talking.

  
“Why don’t you take the number to an AI or some eggheads who know how to figure that stuff out?” Another guard suggested.

  
“What? And waste their precious time? The woman’s crazy, it’s probably just a random-ass number.” Shawn spat out.

  
“I dunno, she seemed so sure…” Ivan replied as he mulled over all of this.

  
“How about this. We make a bet on it. You got a month’s time to find out if it’s prime or not.” Shawn said with a twinge of amusement as Ivan looked up to him. “I’ll put in 100 bucks to say it’s nonsense.” The morning guard said with a jeer in his voice while slapping down the 100 dollar bill. Several others followed suit, however, D’hall beside Ivan put down 200.

  
“I’ll take the risk that she’s right and that it’s a prime.” He spoke, raising several “OOOOOOO”s throughout the table alongside doubtful laughs. Ivan looked down to the pool, nearly 1000 in all. He could come out of this with 500 bucks. He recalls the prisoner’s always methodical muttering, then the letters ‘ND’ after each equation; he looks up to the others before putting down 1000$ to match the pool.

  
“Y’all better have my retirement money ready.”

That night, Ivan researched institutes that specialized in calculating these numbers. However, he’d find that most of the impossibly huge numbers were calculated by using a widespread computing network rather than a single computer- and that the largest prime found by hand was found all the way back in 1951. But, finally, he found an institute that seemed to offer their supercomputer up for the hunt quite often. Contemplating for a moment, he wondered if they’d even look at the message, but, he didn’t seem to have any other option and sent a message explaining the situation with the number (which he referenced the voice recording of the prisoner saying the integer). 

From then on, things returned to normal, a few days passed by with no response, and the guard began to doubt if he’d lose this bet simply because nobody would respond to this. A week elapses, and no response. Two weeks in and Ivan starts to do the math on how much he’d have to take out of his retirement fund to pay for this mistake. However, it’s on the cusp of the third week when he receives a message from someone at the Ganymede STEM institute. 

“Ivan, I am terribly sorry for the late response. We have been running our computer for the past two weeks over this number for a total of 10 times to ensure accuracy. And we are beyond astounded to find that the number aforemore mentioned, is indeed, prime- an undiscovered prime at that. And, if what you say is true, that your prisoner indeed calculated this out without the use of a computer, it would be the largest prime number found using this method. We will be publishing our research…” The letter continued on, but Ivan couldn’t find it in himself to continue, because this woman just won him over 20,000 dollars. 

He stumbled out of his quarters, throwing on his guard gear and booked it down to section 17 to where prisoner 1848 was being held. There, he saw Shawn keeping guard for the morning shift, and he shot the approaching off-duty guard a quizzical look.

  
“Something up?” Shawn questioned, to which Ivan only offered a simple answer while brushing past him.

  
“You owe me my retirement money,” Ivan spoke while going up to the door and gripping onto the bars as she had several weeks ago.

  
“Hey,” He barked at the woman who was pacing around the cell while muttering to herself, “that number, it’s prime. How in the hell did you know?” Ivan spoke between the bars, and for the first time while addressing the woman she stopped her muttering to turn to look at him, those same dark eyes staring him down as the smallest of smiles turned the corners of her lips up before she spoke.

  
“The numbers never lie.”


End file.
